The pain and pain of an office romance

The pain and pain of an office romance – for some it’s a casual fling, for other’s a crush, an infatuation, and, a love that blossoms against all odds, and is told and told to friends who care, inventing reasons on the run and look for hugs for-one-last-time, and murmur vague obscenities when no avail. Like high school girls with clear skinned smiles, Janis Ian, tells us they married young, and then retired, for those who win the game lose the love they sought to gain. 

Ok, so I got carried away a little. For many, professionalism is sometimes pushed aside, they will tell you, how can someone remain so with someone so beautiful!, adorable even. So much can’t be said, the pain, and inevitable goodbye - 9 to 5 after all and rules to go.

Careerbuilder and Harris Poll asked 7,000 employees tough questions about their work and dating habits recently. It turns out that 38% of workers said they have dated a co-worker at least once over the course of their career; 17% reported dated workers at least twice. 31% said their office romance led them to the altar.

Workplace relationships have become so popular, the pop culture term "office spouse" took hold of the corporate environment and held on for a good while.

Interestingly, the trend continues to show that 1 in 3 of those romances lead to marriage.

A painting and gender anxieties

Whilst at home today nursing the flu I came across a little book about a painting which at the turn of the twentieths made a very large statement became embroiled gender politics and anxieties of the time.

In London’s national gallery hangs an amazing nude. She belongs to the 17^th Century but looks more like a modern-women. She’s been called the baroque equivalent to a playboy centrefold.

I’m talking about the Rokeby Venus. A painting by Diego Velázquez virtually unknown until about a hundred years ago. It suddenly became famous at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. And when it did emerge, the canvas became the victim of a violent attack.

When the Rokeby Venus was painted 350 years ago in Spain artists who dared to paint nudes faced excommunication, fines, and exile enforced by the Spanish inquisition.

After Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808 the painting was whisked to England where the picture was bought by an art dealer and sold to a Scotsman in Rokeby, thus the title. It remained unseen by the public for 80 years. After financial hardship, the painting was sold again in 1905.  The National Art Collects Fund launched a campaign to save the painting with little luck.

An art lover, none other than the king, Edward the 7^th came to the party. In the National Art Collects fund book (see above) for January 1906 there is a pasted letter with the Buckingham Palace letterhead stating that his Majesty was much interested and promised a contribution of 8000 Pounds plus a loan of 5000 pounds.

The painting became a national icon, and whilst the Rokeby Venus epitomised female beauty, women in Britain were up in arms. They wanted the vote. The painting was attached by a women in support to those held in custody for civil disobedience.

YOLO code for irresponsible behaviors

So is “YOLO” the latest craze trending ion Twitter, Facebook and amongst teens. The acronym for the phrase “you only live once” which is often used as a hashtag on Twitter to bring attention to exciting events or an excuse for irresponsible behaviors. "You Only Live Once," is used to signal that they're about to make a bad decision, has recently become huge with everyone else.

Living in the now is really less about living, and more an entitlement to self-indulgence, a title that people throw around because it supposedly gives the perception of someone who is grabbing life by the balls. But the “living” had dwindled down to a slew of romanticized notions of “fun,” as dictated by the girls and boys of Gossip Girl (alcohol, sex, drama).

Most historians credit the hip-hop artist Drake, who observed, "You only live once, that's the motto nigga Y.O.L.O." on his hit song "The Motto."

In 2011 the Twitter analytics site Trendistic reports that tweets with the keyword “yolo” picked a day after Drake tweeted the balcony photo closely followed by official music video. in December 16th, 2011, The Huffington Post published a photo of the actor Zac Efron with “YOLO” tattooed on his right hand. In the 3rd season of the NBC reality show The Average Joe. Mesh launched the “You Only Live Once” (YOLO) clothing line on in 2004.

Fifty Shades of Grey and Sugar Daddies

Can it be true that thousands of women are focusing their energy on landing sugar daddies, according to a website specializing in “mutually beneficial relationships.”

It seems thousands of women have cited the racy Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by E. L, James as the primary reason for signing up for www.SeekingArrangement.com since January.

Talk of the book, which follows a woman’s provocative sexual relationship with a rich entrepreneur, has been all over social media feeds, as many casual readers are gobbling up the series as fast they can. Meanwhile, the website offers younger women and wealthy older men the chance to meet up in the hopes of pursuing anything from casual flings to long-term relationships.

SeekingArrangement spokeswoman says the site’s female members are typically looking for rich partners to provide allowances, take them on trips and help them live the “fairy-tale” experience described in the books.

Facebook and a brave new world

In recent months, Facebook has spent large amounts of money on the startup behind photo-sharing application Instagram, on face.com who according to the press releases, a technology that has helped to provide the best photo experience and on the "social discovery" startup Glancee responsible for the mobile application for finding like-minded people.

Wonder where facebook is going with all this; Emphasis on mobile platforms perhaps, Facial recognition technology, automating photo-tagging. Just a couple of things...

Face.com is a firm based in Tel Aviv, Israel, that has developed technology used for facial recognition on photos loaded onto websites and through mobile applications. The company has released two apps used on Facebook called Photo Finder and Photo Tagger. Facebook says the startup firm specializes in software that lets computers recognize people's faces in digital images. That there may be a worry for some.

Implementing facial recognition technology for all users can mean Facebook is able to collect a huge, photo-searchable database of its users.  So what you say? Basically, Facebook is using facial recognition technology to "suggest" tags to users who upload photos. In other words, if I upload 12 photos of my friend Munchkin, Facebook may "recognize" her face (thanks to other tagged photos of her on the website) and "suggest" that I tag her in those 12 photos. This makes the tagging process a little easier for me; after all, aren't I more likely to tag Munchkin if all I have to do is click a button that says "yes, tag away"?

Facebook has 800 million active members and each day, members upload over 200 million photos, Facebook currently hosting over 90 billion photos. Each time you "tag" a photo, its facial recognition technology learns more about what that person looks like. This technology is currently being used to help people tag photos. Is it possible, however, this will ultimately culminate in the ability to search for people using just a picture. And that will be the end of privacy, as we know it.

Not difficult for someone to snap a picture of you in a crowd, and discover everything about you on online.

Google's doodle - a great man living in dark days

As usual Google doesn’t disappoint. In the doodle celebrating the 100th birthday of Alan Turing they have created an animation reflecting the great man’s work. It’s also true unless you’ve studied university mathematics and/or computer science it’s probably something not immediately familiar.

The Google guys are no hacks by any means and have not only pulled together a brilliant doodle, it’s also at once a turning engine and a piece of cryptography challenging us to crack. For those who know of Turning will know he was an exceptionally gifted mathematician, computer scientist and code breaker, whose Turing Machine was the basis for so much in computing.

There is a photo of Turning in my office amongst much clutter – from time to time when I come across it, I’m reminded just how great his loss is to the world, and of the bigotry he endured in very dark days.

For in an act of utter disgrace, for which the British government only apologized in 2009, Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952. He was chemically castrated and died in 1954 at the age of 41 after biting into an apple laced with cyanide.

Turning helped crack the German Enigma code, a great step toward bringing a successful end to World War II. In return, he was prosecuted for gross indecency and given the choice of prison or experimental chemical castration. He chose the latter. His conviction meant he could no longer work for the British government.

Click below for the solution to the doodle.

By the way, the text “Google” is 01000111 01101111 01101111 01100111 01101100 01100101 in binary.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2186651/Alan-Turing-Google-Doodle-Turing-Machine-Codebreaker-Logo-Honors-Father-of-Computer-Science

Icelandic Worm Monster - a misunderstanding

So we woke up today to hear about new footage claiming proof of the existence of the legendary beast Lagarfljótsormurinn, or Iceland's version of Scotland's Loch Ness Monster. Follow the link below to see this for yourself.

The notorious 'snake-like' creature is said to live in the Lagarfljót lake, which is 25 miles long and 367 feet deep - and it has been the subject of many a supposed sighting since reports of it first emerged in 1345.

Not sure if it’s just me but this monster hardly looks fluid, rather robotic, contrived and hoax’ie. What really captured my attention is not so much the new vision - rather the way a misunderstanding and/or a mistranslation through the ages can lead to people seeking [finding] a monster that looks more like the error in translation.

For instance, the phrase 'Icelandic Worm Monster' was coined in the 21st Century and comes from a mistranslation of Lagarfljótsormurinn simply as Lagarfljót worm. This is instead of the more correct Lagarfljót Würm or Wurm - a phrase which harks back to dragon folklore. It’s just possible that perhaps someone has decided to take the phrase 'worm' too literally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OmyyHyya64